Well, I'm out of the MTC. It's over. On Tuesday I got in a bus, then a train, then a Trax (like a smaller train), then a tiny plane (for thirty minutes), then a van, then finally the mission home. I got there, watched a trying-its-best-to-be-scary video about car accidents, got fed a bunch of medical info, and then met the Mission President for three minutes. He seems nice, but again, only met him for three minutes. We had dinner at his house and got assigned to our areas and companions. I'm serving the first chunk of my mission in Idaho Falls! More about the area later. We then went to bed at this nice empty-nester couple's house and thus ended the most hectic day of my life.
So now I'm in my area. So many mission blogs I've read have been kind of over-the-top positive, which is important, optimism is important, but also kind of blatantly unrealistic. So I'm going to be just rattling off the Goods and Bads of this mission, specifically.
Good: The area. I live in this kind of ramshackle, blue-collar suburb in Idaho Falls. The people here are mostly Mormon, so I'm constantly getting waved at and honked at and having food basically shoved into me. I have spent, so far, $20 on groceries. Of those groceries I bought, so far this week I have eaten one can of soup and some cookies. I have been subsisting, almost entirely, on the constant offerings of pizza and leftover casserole that I keep getting delivered. The people here are really, really, really aggressively nice. Even the pets are nice. There are just these roving packs of dogs and cats that, so far, have been more the "look it's people pet me pet me pet me" variety, and not the "look it's people I wonder what their Achilles Tendons taste like" variety.
Bad: The walking. My companionship is the only one in the area not to have a car, so we walk everywhere. Luckily the area we cover is so dense that most things are relatively close to each other, but even so we probably spend 3-4 hours a day just walking.
Good: My companion. He's a pretty easy guy to get along with. He's been here 17 months, so is kind of on the home stretch, but he's really motivated and popular with the people in the area. The only downside is that he's a big runner, so he gets me up at 5:45 some mornings to go jogging which is basically my nightmare.
Bad: The adjustment. Still getting used to all this. The MTC was so crazy packed full of things to do, and that was stressful in its own way, but here there's all this open time. Not the fun kind of open time, where you get to relax, but the angst-inducing kind where there's an expectation for you to be finding something to do the second you get done with your previous activity. Often times there isn't anything to do. Which is why we walk so much, we're just trying to talk to someone.
We haven't been doing much teaching either; this neighborhood is in a weird phase, where many of the people living here are moving away. A few weeks ago we had a sizable amount of investigators, but nearly all of them are gone now and the area's at square one.
The people here are pretty interesting. Like I said before, my area's largely populated by lower-middle class worker-types. Many of them are really humble and kind and interesting, but there's also a sizable population of "crazies," as my companion refers to them. I had my first experience with one on Friday, actually. We were coming back from a dinner with some members, and this huge guy, like 6'3", 350 lbs, just kind of waves us into his house, which doesn't seem to have a door? It then becomes pretty obvious that he's absolutely plastered, and he's an agile drunk guy. He gives a fervent prayer for the local Little League team to go win the National Championships, then kind of goes on a tirade for half an hour, while blocking our exit. Some choice quotes:
"Mormons are strong, man. You need- you guys gotta have WEAPONS."
"Kids these days, they don't- they don't even know- When my freakin' grandkids are over and they're bein' nightmares I have 'em read the Bible under a TREE. I tell em, 'GO READ THE BIBLE UNDER A TREE FOR FOUR MIIIINUTES' and at first they didn't like it but now they like reading the Bible under a tree."
"AHHHHHHHHHH" (While clawing at his own chest)
"There's this guy man, you got to help me man, there's this guy, in prison right now, but he gets out soon, and he works with computers, he'll find me, and he said he's going to kill me. I told the cops but the cops, they don't, they don't care. They don't even, they don't care!"
(At this point he kind of just starts jumping around, punching the air) "I BELIEVE, MAN. I BELIEVE. JESUS CHRIST IS GOING TO- HE KNOWS WHEN- JOSEPH SMITH IS GOING TO COME IN HERE AND LEAD ME THROUGH THE CEEEEEEILING" (He jumps up and punches what I assume to be the door to his attic)
Towards the end he grabbed me by the shoulders, this giant, violently inebriated, bear of a man, and starts shaking me, yelling to "STAND UP, YOU GOTTA, YOU GOTTA STAND STRAIGHT" I was frantically trying to stand up straighter, I guess, but it didn't seem to satisfy him. It was actually kind of terrifying. Luckily he got bored of that and we left. He said goodbye but then tried to follow us home.
Anyway, so, Idaho. That's how it's going. Oh, and yes, it was crazy to run into Mindy and Peter!
Thanks to everybody for your letters and prayers and support.
Also, quick postscript, I was going to send pictures but it turns out I need an SD card reader to use the SD card I bought at the MTC. So expect pictures next week. Whoops!
Love,
Ethan
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